[nandm]

Day 6

Acknowledging the Parent.

"There is no greater bugbear than a strong-willed relative in the circle of his own convictions." Nathaniel Hawthorne

Eric Berne, founder of transational analysis, theorized that our inner selves are three distinct and separate entitites who vie for control: the parent, the child, and the adult.

This may explain, in part, the confusion that we often feel arise within ourselves as we try to sort out our responses to a situation. Today, let's look at our parent self. How does this entity affect our ability to admit our problem?

Our inner parent is the part of us that was programmed by our own parents, our teachers, our ministers, our guardians, or our older siblings. The parent is the critical monitor of our behavior: it acts as taskmaster and guide. The parent burdens us with the tyranny of "shoulds," and it is constantly grading us in our performance, whether this involves work, play or accomplishments. Our inner parent, conditioned by early programming, tries to lead us along the straight and narrow. It continually cautions us against nonconformity.

It is important that we see both the strengths and the weaknesses of our inner parent, for the information stored in that entity is designed to help us plot our journey through life. Although it truly intends to protect us, too often our inner parent controls us in a manner that leads to rigid, stuck behavior.

As we become more familiar with our parent entity, we can readily see its influence on our actions. We begin to realize that we have often restricted ourselves when it was neither necessary nor comfortable to do so.

Today's Step: I release the "shoulds" and judgments of my inner critic."

Step by Step. Muriel Zink

Although I am not someone who has found the inner child theory useful in my life I believe in keeping an open mind. Releasing the "shoulds" and judgments of my inner critic is something that I struggled with over the years. I have found that my life has much more serenity in it when I let go of my judgments and "have to's" and just live life. I hope you will find something useful in the above quote. If not please take what you can use and leave the rest. I did.